Oldboy
reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 4 out of 4
South Korea, 2003
U.S. Release Date: 4/15/05 (limited)
Running Length: 2:00
MPAA Classification: R (strong violence including scenes of torture,
sexuality and pervasive language)
Director: Chan-wook Park
Cast: Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang, Dae- han Ji
Screenplay: Jo-yun Hwang, Chun-hyung Lim, Chan-wook Park
Producer: Seung-yon Lim
Cinematography: Jeong-hun Jeong
Editing: Sang-Beom Kim
Music: Yeong-wook Jo
U.S. Distributor: Tartan USA
To describe Oldboy would be to imagine Franz Kafka's novella The
Metamorphosis mixed with Quentin Tarantino's revenge saga Kill Bill
and placed in the cities, schoolrooms, and prisons of South Korea. That
would give you a vague idea of what this film attempts. Now add
elements of thick brutality, sexual torture, bizarre time-jumps and
head-spinning revelations, and you may be able to envision the strange
and beautiful symphony that is Oldboy.
Oh Dae-Su (Min-sik Choi) wakes up in a room. The window is plastered
over with a cheap painting of the countryside, there's a bed, a
television, and a small bathroom. Each night, gas is spilled through
the crack in his door, Oh Dae-Su passes out and is awakened later with
his hair cut. All there is to do is watch TV, beat at the walls with
his fists, and chip away at the brick wall. Dae-su is imprisoned in
this room eating fried dumplings and being hypnotized into amnesia for
fifteen years. All without knowing who has imprisoned him and why they
did so. He vows that his only objective when he escapes is to hunt down
his keeper and eat him. That's right, eat him. The premise sounds as
simplistic as a general revenge thriller but believe me, there is
little about Oldboy that could be described as "simple".
You'll first notice Director Chan-wook Park's take on his material.
Like Kafka did with The Metamorphosis, Park skips interim fluff between
important sequences and nearly always just cuts to the chase. Rarely
are we faced with a scene that doesn't contain an essential
revelation or storyline twist. Each scene is essential in constructing
Park's maze-like screenplay and does so with a pace that's
unrelenting in its speed. Also, Park loves to confuse reality with
dream in Oldboy. Again relating the film to Kafka's novella, Park
never really discerns between fact and fiction. Many times we're
presented with a scene that seems strictly dream-like (a woman on a
train inhabited only by a giant ant), only to have the film carry on in
the very reality we previously realized only as imagination. And he
never lets us settle with characters we believe to be human. For
instance, because Dae-Su's only linguistic interaction for the last
fifteen years was with his television, most of his words in the real
world come straight from the "truths" he heard from the TV. And
many of the characters, despite making human mistakes, take vengeance
in the most inhuman of ways. Dae-Su's weapon of choice is a hammer
for pete's sake!
But much of Oldboy's power comes from its incredible honesty. Park
uses his Kafka-esque plotting to keep us on the edge of our seats, even
in the most inhumane of moments. His violence is brutal, his sex is
real, and most of all, his taste for revenge is simply palpable. He
grips our psyche to mold us to his film's will, drawing us deeper
into its convoluted reality and spitting us out when he's all
through. It's a twisted, cathartic experience that I absorbed for
days afterward. It works on all angles of our cerebral organ, evoking
emotions and images that I will not soon forget.
-Sam Osborn
www.samseescinema.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 39689 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1382836 X-RT-TitleID: 1143932 X-RT-SourceID: 1677 X-RT-AuthorID: 11589 X-RT-RatingText: 4/4
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